


I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules

by ThatAj



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: AKA floofy noodle wedding caper fic, Angst with a Happy Ending, Any similarities to Queer As Folk are entirely purposeful, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/F, M/M, Queer as Folk AU, Spoilers for Queer As Folk, The best man has to kidnap the groom because tradition, based on a tweet, falling in love with your best friend's boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:40:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAj/pseuds/ThatAj
Summary: Armie Hammer cannot stand his best friend's fiance. Too bad Italian wedding tradition dictates that as best man, he must kidnap the fiance (whom he calls "the floofy noodle" to himself, to no one else because everyone else loves the kid) the day before the wedding. And who is he to stand in the way of tradition?
Relationships: Elizabeth Chambers/Lily-Rose Depp, Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet/Nick Delli Santi
Comments: 264
Kudos: 300





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The blame for this rests squarely at Mae428's feet. She shared a tweet that reads _"In Romania there's the tradition that a bunch of friends of the groom steals the bride during the wedding party for like half an hour. To the last wedding I've been they never brought her back and she ended up marrying the best man #WeddingFail."_ And look? If real life is going to mimic fanfic, who am I to stand in the way?
> 
> (the title to this fic is from a Brandi Carlile song because I am terrible at naming fics)  
(I'm cross-posting this to the QAF fandom because it does rely heavily on QAF characterization and some dialogue and [shrugs] I figure there _may_ some multifandom fans.)

Armie groans as sunlight flutters through the window and streams directly into his eyes. No one had thought to draw the blinds last night. Armie contemplates getting up and doing so but instead just rolls over and buries his face in the pillow below him. 

How the fuck did he wind up here?

Here being an Italian villa. Like an actual villa in actual Italy. 

Here being standing up as best man for his best friend. 

Here being setting aside his own personal beliefs because he _doesn’t fucking believe in the institution of marriage._

Here being watching his best friend marry someone that Armie has secretly called “the floofy noodle” since Nick introduced him as his new boyfriend four years ago. 

Armie hadn’t expected the relationship to stick. Or the nickname. Mostly because he assumed the relationship would run its course like all of Nick’s relationships. 

He is pretty proud of the nickname even if there is no one who could appreciate his humor because he obviously can’t tell anyone. 

He might be a shit best friend, and he is definitely a shit best man, but even he knows you don’t tell anyone the demeaning nickname you secretly call the man your best friend has decided is the great love of his life. 

Even if the man in question is definitely a floofy noodle. 

If Armie is being honest with himself, how he got here began years ago. 

Perhaps it started in the ninth grade when he walked into the locker room to see Nick being shoved into a locker. Armie had been the new kid in town and had really hoped this time his dad wouldn’t get fired after showing up late or drunk or both to work causing them to move again. He had really hoped this time he could have an opportunity to make friends. Friends with the cool kids. The kids everyone looked up to and feared a little. Because that’s who Armie wanted to be. He saw himself in power, on top, and alone. He didn’t need anyone. 

Saving this nerdy kid was obviously not on the agenda for operation: be the cool new mysterious kid. 

But the guys were calling this kid “fag” and Armie had a soft spot, okay?

So he saved Nick. A nerdy kid, obsessed with comic books, who now had his own personal superhero in Armie. And he dragged Armie downtown to the queer part of town where his uncle Luca had a restaurant, officially called Trattoria Guadagnino but affectionately referred to by the queers who frequented the place as “G’s.” 

Armie grew up at G’s - the place and Luca himself were a refuge from Armie’s house. He spent hours at the table in the back corner doing first his homework and then helping Nick with his. 

He bussed tables there during college when he needed the extra cash as his scholarship covered only books, housing, and a meal plan but did not allow extra money to go out drinking, or buy weed, or finally invest in those designer clothes Armie started wearing to the clubs, where he was regularly pulling two, three guys a night, with Nick as his loyal wingman.

So maybe he’s here, fighting a hangover because twenty years ago he saved Nick (whom Armie has come to learn likes being saved but doesn’t actually need saving, he’s stronger than he seems especially after he grew into his ears and eyes during a growth spurt before their senior year) from some jock homophobes.

But then there’s the floofy noodle.

Armie doesn’t remember this very clearly, because the night in question is not very clear in his memory at all. He blames that on a bad batch of ecstasy. But there is the night he met the floofy noodle. 

It was also the night he met Harper. Nothing about _those_ memories are hazy though. 

He pulled up to the hospital, Nick in tow, and ran down the corridor, stopping only briefly at the nurses’ station on the maternity floor to find out what room Liz was in, before racing the rest of the way and bursting into her room. 

He vaguely recalls a band of merry lesbians outside the hospital room, as they accompanied Liz and her partner Lily-Rose to all life milestones. _Community,_ Armie thought derisively to himself. One of those things that Luca was always going on about but Armie thought his life was perfectly fine without, thank you very much.

He burst through the door of the hospital room and Lily-Rose, who had been standing beside the bed, turned around revealing Liz, glowing, holding what appeared to be a bundle of blankets in her arms.

“Armie!” She called out, beaming, stretching out her hand to him. “Meet your daughter.”

“My...my daughter?” Liz grinned and nodded. He tentatively moved closer to the bed and peered at the creature in her arms. Liz began to hand her to Armie and he reached out for her. 

“Don’t drop her,” Lily-Rose warned. Armie shot her a withering look, he specialized in those, “Yes, Lily-Rose that’s exactly what I was planning on doing.” 

The fact that Liz had convinced Lily-Rose to have Armie father their child was nothing short of a miracle. Armie, himself, up until that moment, had only planned on being a sperm donor, having no interest in being a father nor did he have any type of father to model himself after.

He held the tiny baby in his arms and the baby twisted an arm out of her swaddling and reached up to him and Armie heard the mechanical shutter of an iphone camera in the background. He looked up and saw Nick beaming at him as he snapped away, never one to let an important moment go unrecorded. Beside him stood one of the lesbians from out in the corridor. 

No, no that wasn’t a lesbian, Armie course corrected. That was a slender man, dark unruly curls, and a pretty pink pouting mouth. Not at all Armie’s type, so Armie dismissed him right away, except for the fact that he was here in the room where his daughter had just come into the world. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Armie demanded. Lily-Rose rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to doting on Liz. 

“That’s Timothee,” Liz answered for the boy, her French accent impeccable.

“But you can call me Timmy,” the boy offered helpfully.

“I don’t plan on calling you anything,” Armie smirked. Even dishelved from cutting his most recent fuck short and sweaty from the drugs and racing through the hospital, he still had it. If the hooded doe eyes the boy was sending him was any indication. “What the fuck are you doing in my daughter’s hospital room?”

He would later blame the ecstasy and the weed for the warmth that spread throughout his body at the first mention of “my daughter.” 

“Timothee is the new assistant at my gallery,” Liz offered, smiling as she looked back and forth between them, those new mother hormones obviously making her sentimental and hindering her from making any sense because what the fuck?

“He drove her to the hospital when her water broke and when no one could reach you.” Lily-Rose explained, her hatred of Armie clear in her voice. And, oh, right, Armie had turned his phone to airplane mode at the club because he wanted to save his battery in case he felt dissatisfied after the men on the dance floor and in the backroom and needed to go on Grindr. He had needs and he made sure they always, always got met. 

“So, uh, what’s her name?” Nick piped up. He could bring about world peace with his wide-eyed innocence. Liz and Lily-Rose exchanged a look. 

“Well,” Liz began, batting her eye-lashes at Armie, as if that would do anything. Sure they had fooled around once, drunkenly, in college and that was enough experimentation to last Armie a lifetime. Liz had somehow, over the intervening years, clung to some misguided belief that she and Armie would be one big queer happy family, adding Lily-Rose when she and Liz met at some fundraising event at the local LGBTQ Center. Someplace Armie would never be caught dead (he writes the checks, he’s always generous, he knows the good work the Center does, but he does not show up to the events). Liz and Lily-Rose hit it off right away and Armie and Lily-Rose hated each other from first glance. Too similar by half, unfortunately. Both leaders in their fields - Lily-Rose is a lawyer for human rights cases, which keeps her busy and underpaid and Armie is in advertising, using blatant sexuality to sell about eighty percent of what came across his desk and subtle sexuality to sell the other twenty percent and is on track to become the youngest partner ever at his firm. “Lily-Rose wanted to name her Edwige…” Liz’s voice trailed off. 

“After my grandmother,” Lily-Rose interjected. 

“...but I thought Harper was a nice name.” She smiled up at Armie and pulled a little at his sleeve. 

Armie glanced around the room and his eyes fell on the kid whose limbs looked too long for his body and his hair seemed wildly out of control for someone who was supposedly coming from work and not fresh from a fuck. “What do you think?” 

“Wha-what do I think?” The kid’s eyes went wide, giving Armie a real glimpse for the first time at how green they were. “I - I think that Edwige would make things very difficult for her on the playground but Harper, Harper is a nice strong name for a girl.” 

Armie leaned forward and kissed the baby on the tip of her tiny baby nose and whispered, “Harper” before handing her back to Liz. Lily-Rose rolled her eyes again and Armie shrugged. “What? The kid grew up with Timothee as his name, he knows what he’s talking about.” In response the kid let out a breathless laugh that Armie found irritating. 

So yeah, Armie met the floofy noodle the night his daughter was born. The night he became a father. And there would be something cosmic and meaningful about that had Armie and the floofy noodle started dating. But Armie didn’t date, didn’t do relationships.

Nick did though. Nick who had, sometime after meeting Timmy, given up his fifteen year crush on Armie and saw someone who was right in front of him, whose heart had been built properly, and who was capable of love. 

Someone who joined their crazy little queer family with their hours long Sunday dinners at Luca’s (because when he wasn’t at G’s, he was still cooking for everyone and anyone). 

Someone whom Lily-Rose was capable of liking enough that when she and Liz began talking about giving Harper a sibling, she asked Timmy to be the sperm donor. 

And whom Armie can not stand. He knows he was the only one. His entire world, his best friend included, is in love with one Timothee Chalamet, and Armie has no choice but to grin and bear it. 

Oh and he has to spend the entire day before the wedding with him. Just the two of them. Because it is an Italian tradition. And Nick Delli Santi did not just fly everyone to an Italian villa for his wedding to skip over any traditions, no matter how much his best friend might advise him that this is a very bad idea indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So yeah Armie has fucked Timmy. And Timmy is known as the Floofy Noodle in Armie’s mind, because if he didn’t call him that, he doesn’t know what he would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so when I tagged this “eventual smut” I meant chapter two, I hope you can forgive me

Armie has fucked Timmy. Because of course he has. There’s hardly an ass in this town he hasn’t been in. 

Not Nick’s. Armie has not fucked Nick and never will. “Don’t fuck your friends” is one of his many mottos. 

Obviously, Armie fucked Timmy before Timmy was “the floofy noodle.” 

It was the night Harper was born. Lily-Rose had gone to get Liz a fizzy drink of some sort. Armie had requested Lily-Rose bring him some amyl nitrate but that had only earned him an eye roll. The nurse had taken Harper to the nursery and Armie and Liz were left alone. 

Armie plopped down beside Liz on the bed and flirted, “Alone at last.” 

“Careful,” Liz warned him, teasingly pointing her finger at his chest.

“Well here we are, Ma and Pa,” Armie smirked.

Liz’s eyes filled with tears and her voice shook, “Don’t mind me, just feeling a little...vulnerable.” She laughed a little. 

Armie gave her a kinder look, “I promise not to tell.”

Liz blinked back her tears and looked up at him, “Who would have thought? You and me. Parents.” 

Armie shook his head in disbelief. “It’s pretty scary boys and girls.” 

“Think it’s too late to return it?” Liz smiled shakily.

“We could try,” Armie’s voice rumbled. 

“I guess this means we’re finally grown ups.” Liz sighed but smiled. 

“Hell, if our parents could fuck up, so can we.” Armie’s look shiftly suddenly, to one of sincerity. “I don’t want you to worry, about money I mean. If you need anything…” 

“No, no we’ll be alright. But thanks.” She leaned up and kissed him and he returned the kiss. 

Lily-Rose returned carrying a ginger-ale and loudly clearing her throat. Armie pulled back from the kiss and smirked at her as she handed the soda to Liz and Nick stuck his head in to ask if Armie was ready to go. 

Once they were out in the hallway, Nick put his hands on Armie’s shoulders and looked into his eyes, no doubt taking in his dilated pupils. “Okay, what did you take?”

Armie opened his eyes in faux innocence, “Me?” And in response to Nick giving him the “don’t bullshit me” look he had inherited from his Uncle Luca, Armie sighed, “I vaped in the bathroom.” 

“Give me the keys, I can drive you home.”

“I can - I can take you.” A voice came from somewhere behind Armie. 

Nick looked behind Armie, “Liz’s...assistant?”

“Timmy” he filled in as he came to stand next to Armie and Nick. “Liz, uh, mentioned that Armie lived by me.” And in response to Nick and Armie’s confused expressions. “When I was asking who the father was and because she knows my address...because I’m her employee?” Timmy continued to speak as Armie and Nick continued to stand there with confused expressions painted on their faces. “So, uh, I could take Armie home? And Nick doesn’t have to drive out of his, um, way? Guys? Tell me when any of this starts making sense?”

Nick nodded first, Armie being a little slower in his current state. “Sure, yeah, yes. That makes sense.” He clapped Armie on the shoulder and pulled him into a hug. “Night, Daaaaaad.”

Armie hugged him back and kissed him on the cheek and walked off half in a daze after this new guy. Timmy, he had said his name was Timmy.

So Timmy drove him home and there were very few guys who made it to Armie’s front door without making it into his white and chrome loft and into the bed, or onto the couch, or bent over the kitchen counter. So when Timmy pulled up to the curb outside Armie’s building, Armie looked him in the eyes and held his gaze for a moment too long and asked in his deep baritone, “So, where are you headed?”

Timmy’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, but he held Armie’s gaze and responded, “No place special.”

“I can change that.” 

So Timmy got invited inside and he stood by the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking around the large space. 

“Coming in?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

“Shut the door.” 

Timmy turned and pulled the heavy metal industrial door shut. “This is a nice place. I like your kitchen.”

“Thanks.” Armie walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water and, after twisting off the cap and throwing it over his shoulder, poured the water over his head, shaking his hair like a wet dog. He then pulled off all his wet clothes and walked until he was standing in front of Timmy, whose eyes had gone wide and whose slightly crooked teeth were worrying his bottom lip. Armie held out his arms, his tanned, muscular body, on display. “So, are you coming or going? Or coming then going? Or coming and staying?”

Timmy, never breaking Armie’s gaze, slipped out of his jacket, dropping it on the floor, and started unbuttoning the shirt he had worn to work at the gallery that day, while simultaneously kicking off his shoes and socks. He walked up to Armie, in his tight black jeans and soft, nearly transparent t-shirt, and put an arm around Armie’s neck, pulling him close, as he stood up a little on his toes, and kissed him deeply. Armie moaned into the kiss, as he slid his hand between them and started unbuttoning Timmy’s fly. As soon as he could, he stuck his hand into Timmy’s boxer briefs and wrapped it around Timmy’s length. 

Armie Hammer, Mr. Stud, Consummate Top is a bit of a size queen. Luckily, Timmy’s big dick energy did not lie about the man’s actual size. 

Armie started stroking Timmy with a rough sure pace, pulling him against his chest with his other arm, pushing his large bulge against Timmy’s hip. Timmy whimpered. 

Armie walked Timmy backwards to the two steps leading up to the area of the loft that had been paneled off for his bedroom. A shrine to the Sex God himself. Bathed in neon blue light and with dark, soft sheets, Armie pushed Timmy backward onto the bed and fell onto him, pulling off his remaining clothes.

Timmy was not Armie’s usual type - he usually went for bigger, more muscular men, but Timmy was beautiful. So beautiful Armie thought, as he pushed into that pale, lithe body, his hands grabbing each cheek of that pert ass, holding in two what he could easily hold in one, pulling them apart like he would the two halves of a ripe peach, watching his cock, like steel, sheathed in latex, push in. He fell forward onto his arms and began a punishing pace. Timmy moaned and writhed under him, making noises that were half words, half nonsense, wrapping his long slender fingers around Armie’s biceps. Armie dropped his head down until their foreheads were touching as Timmy arched his back, and they kissed, their teeth crashing together. Timmy began to shake with his orgasm and his hole clenched around Armie, bringing him off as well. Armie fell limply on top of Timmy, pulling out as gently as possible, and removing the condom and throwing it...somewhere. He felt around and pulled his duvet, smelling of fresh linen, around them, and fell asleep with his arm and leg draped over Timmy. 

Armie rarely lets guys stay the night. Even more rarely once his loft was broken into. They stole his Philippe Starck juicer, it was obviously a queer on queer crime. But when Armie woke up the following morning and opened his eyes, he found he didn’t entirely mind the heavy lidded, sleepy, green eyes, framed by impossibly long lashes, blinking back at him. Those eyes were framed by the messiest bird’s nest of curls Armie had ever seen. He didn’t mind it. 

He didn’t mind it when they leaned against the counters in his galley kitchen facing each other drinking coffee. 

He didn’t mind it when Timmy drove him to Nick’s to pick up his car. 

He did mind it a day or two later, when he walked into G’s and Nick greeted him with a hug and a booming, “Armand Douglas Hammer! I don’t know what it is you say to them but whatever it is, you speak to all of them.” 

To which Armie responded, “Huh?”

“That kid, Timmy, was in here the other day asking about you.”

“Timmy?”

“You know, Liz’s assistant. The one who drove you home the night you became a daaaaad,” Nick teased out. 

“Oh yeah?” Armie rolled his eyes and painted his face with disinterest. 

“But don’t worry Armie, I set him straight!”

“What?”

“Well not _straight,_” Nick chuckled at his own joke. “But I let him know, Armand Douglas Hammer, may be gorgeous, may be god’s gift to gay men, but he does not do boyfriends. Never has, never will, and he should look elsewhere, because down that path only lies misery and heartbreak.”

Nick grinned at him, pleased to know Armie so well, pleased to be able to look out for what Armie wanted when Armie had come to his rescue so many times, most recently helping his Uncle Luca cover his mortgage. 

Armie smiled back but the smile looked more like a smirk and it didn’t reach his eyes. 

“He is pretty cute though,” Nick mused. “Maybe I should ask him out, whaddaya think, Armie?” And he looked at Armie with those big brown eyes and boyish smile. 

And what could Armie, who always has, who always will save Nick because Nick gave him a family where he could be accepted, even if not truly understood, do? 

“You should do it. Anyone would be lucky to have you.” Armie smiled at him with closed lips. 

“Yeah? Yeah! I’m gonna do it!”

And so Timmy became a part of their lives. Re-introduced to Armie as “You remember Timmy, Liz’s assistant?” 

And later, “My boyfriend Timmy has a piece in an art show you should come. Can you believe it? His first art show. Sure, it’s at the gallery where he and Liz work, but today Bloom Gallery, tomorrow who knows!”

And finally Armie stood in front of an oversized painting with large bold dashes of color that were intermixed with computer generated images, torn apart and recreated, totally speechless. He was standing there when Timmy walked up beside him. 

“Art openings are always such gay occassions,” Armie smirked. 

“Mmm,” Timmy hummed in response.

“Especially now that you’re here.”

“Mmm. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Neither was I.” 

“That’s it? Do you like it?” 

Armie moved closer to Timmy and hunched slightly to whisper in his ear, “If I did, would that make it good?”

“No,” Timmy’s voice was hoarse.

“Would it make you like it more or less.”

“No,” Timmy’s voice trembled.

“Would it make you rich?”

“No,” Timmy whispered.

“Then why do you give a shit what I think?” And Armie walked away. He got a few steps away and spun around, making eye contact with Timmy. “I think it’s exquisite. You should be very proud.” He paused and followed a slender young man, dressed in black jeans and black turtleneck, with his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve fucked an artsy type.” And turned away again and walked without stopping this time. 

So yeah Armie has fucked Timmy. And Timmy is known as the Floofy Noodle in Armie’s mind, because if he didn’t call him that, he doesn’t know what he would do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timmy meets Armie at the open door and takes a deep breath, his narrow chest rising and falling. “Do you know when I fell in love with you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The image of Timmy hopping on the back of Armie’s scooter may (_may_) have been influenced by the trailer for The French Dispatch.
> 
> **Warning:** for homophobic violence, not in the present day of this story but in the past. Nothing graphic or detailed but it’s there. The focus is primarily on the impact and aftermath. Also descriptions of parental rejection based on sexual orientation.

So that is how Armie finds himself in a villa in Italy, the day before his best friend’s wedding with the obligation to “kidnap” the other groom for the day. And Armie gave his word and he is many things but not a liar. So he will do this and do it right. 

Armie is a little bit jealous that Nick gets to spend the day “kidnapped” by Zendaya, Timmy’s best friend who is in her second year of her residency in internal medicine. Armie is sure Nick is going to have a much more fun day than Armie will have. 

Armie is trying to be a good best man and has a day planned around things Timmy will enjoy. Which sounds, to Armie, terribly boring and incredibly awkward but if he skimps in the slightest in planning for this day, it will raise questions and Nick has known him far too long and regrettably far too well for Armie to really be able to successfully evade questions once they are asked.

The day starts off wrong, because as Armie is lying there, hiding his face from the glaring sun who has decided to join him in his bed, he hears a knock on the door. He groans as he rolls out of bed and stumbles to the door, opening it to find the Floofy Noodle halfway turned around like he had knocked and then thought better of it. Armie squints at him as he first scratches his chest and then his balls. “Huh. What are you doing here?”

“Um, I thought we were going to, supposed to, spend the day together?”

“Yeah, I know that,” Armie rolls his eyes. Who does this kid think he is? Telling Armie they’re supposed to spend the day together. Armie _planned_ the day. “I thought I told you to be here at ten.”

Timmy’s teeth catch his bottom lip in a way that Armie finds distracting, which in turn leads to him feeling more annoyed. Timmy shifts his weight back and forth, swaying, as he stutters, “It-it is ten?”

“Are you asking me if it’s ten?” Armie can’t help fucking with the kid; he makes it so easy. 

“N-no, no I’m telling you, it _is_ ten.” Timmy holds his gaze and Armie is immediately transported back to the night Harper was born, sitting in the front seat of Timmy’s car, asking him where he was headed. Then Timmy’s gaze shifts to something over Armie’s shoulder and god if it doesn’t fuck Armie up just a little to see Timmy get on his toes so he can have a clearer view. “Who-who’s that?”

Armie glances behind himself to see some tall dark and handsome walking from the bed to the door. Totally naked. 

Armie has never once been ashamed or embarrassed of his sexual activities, despite many attempts by his mother to make him feel otherwise in the name of her faith. (Armie, having fucked her priest on all fours in a bathhouse has certain feelings on the hypocritical nature of her faith but he hasn’t told her as telling her would require he speak to her and he avoids that at all costs.) And Armie is not embarrassed or ashamed that Timmy has caught him… no, _seen _ him with some nameless guy. But he feels something like Thai food that has been sitting in the refrigerator a few days too long settle like a heavy lump in his gut. And this just serves to make him angry. He takes it out on the guy, Elio? Enzo? whatever, by scooping his clothes off the floor by the door and shoving them into his arms, and pushing him out the door, with an “It’s been real.” 

Timmy watches the entire exchange, as it were, his pouty pink lips forming a perfect “O” and his eyes wide. 

Armie glares at him, now that Elio, or whoever, is gone. “What?” He turns and walks back into his room, not inviting Timmy in but expecting him to follow. 

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” He can tell from the proximity of Timmy’s voice that he’s trailing after him. He stops and turns around abruptly, nearly knocking Timmy over because he hadn’t expected him to be that close. 

“I’m going to shower. Order us room service.” He turns back around and walks into the bathroom and hears Timmy calling after him. “What do you want?”

“Egg white omelette and bacon, or whatever the fuck it is they have here instead of bacon. Oh and coffee, lots and lots of coffee.” Armie gets into the shower as soon as he turns it on, braving the cold in an effort to escape the awkwardness that colors all his interactions with Timmy. As the shower warms up and he bends his head forward to allow the water to sluice through his hair, he sighs heavily. He didn’t exactly drag out the shower, Friday _is_ the day he deep conditions his hair, but he didn’t exactly try to move quickly either. He has planned a day he thought Timmy would enjoy and that thought spread like a warm feeling in his chest, softening and unspooling the pit in his stomach, but thinking about spending an entire day with Timmy, just the two of them? That warm feeling disappears like the steam out the shower door, when Armie finally shuts off the water and steps out, wrapping and knotting a towel low on his hips, the pit returning and growing. He grabs another towel and throws it over his head and rubs at his hair. He and Timmy have not spent time alone since the night...the night Harper was born. 

Armie takes in the sight of Timmy, sprawled across one of his chairs (did the kid not know how furniture worked?) eating toast slathered in Nutella. Armie snorts, “Nutella? What are you twelve?” 

Timmy chews as if he is considering Armie’s words and swallows before saying, proudly, “I’m half-French, it’s basically my birthright.” 

Armie pours a cup of coffee and dumps about six sugars in before appraising Timmy and fixing him with a stare, one eyebrow raised. “Nutella is Italian.”

Timmy collapses on himself like a balloon deflating for a moment before sitting up again and meeting Armie’s eyes. “Well, I’m marrying an Italian, so it’s perfect.” 

Armie lets out a groan before he can stop himself and Timmy looks at him, eyebrows knitted together. He takes a sip of his coffee. “Armie, why don’t you like me?”

“Why do you care what I think?” Armie asks around a mouthful of eggs. 

“I’m marrying your best friend,” Timmy states factually. 

“Exactly - you’re marrying _him_ not me” Armie smirks at him before drinking more of his coffee. 

“Well we’re going to be - no wait, we _are_ family!” 

“Okay Sister Sledge,” Armie snorts. “We are not family. And you marrying Nick is not going to make you my family. My family is my horrific brother and his demon spawn, my mother who may never die because she’s been pickled by her gin, and my dearly departed dad, may he rot in hell.” 

Timmy pauses, clearly chewing this over along with his final bite of Nutella toast. His eyebrows furrow and the corners of his eyes crinkle in what must be pity and Armie is filled with rage. He and emotional expression may not be best friends, but he gets along just fine. However, one thing he cannot tolerate is pity. It makes his dick soft. He feels himself flush as he prepares for what he is about to unleash on Timmy, when Timmy says softly, “We’re co-parents.”

Armie practically spits out his coffee (he does not, he might not have faith in any god but he knows wasting Italian coffee is sacrilegious). “We are most certainly not co-parents.”

“No, we are,” Timmy begins to explain. Which Armie knows will just be recitation of facts that he already knows. His daughter and Timmy’s son, share Liz and Lily-Rose as their parents. Both Timmy and Armie have signed over their parental rights and Lily-Rose adopted Harper and Liz, Ford.

Armie knows all this so he cuts Timmy off with: “You might be a parent, I have a recurring cameo appearance.” And that shuts Timmy up effectively. Armie gets up and throws on his jeans and a t-shirt and grabs his leather jacket. He grabs a backpack that he packed the night before and checks his pockets: phone, wallet, cigarettes, lighter. Armie might, as a rule, prefer silence to talking and silence in this “family” (Yes, family, okay? For lack of a better word.) is nearly impossible to come by but goddamnit if he doesn’t miss Timmy’s chatter as he sits there studying the floor.

Armie holds open the door, “Well?” he asks Timmy. 

Timmy meets Armie at the open door and takes a deep breath, his narrow chest rising and falling. “Do you know when I fell in love with you?”

Armie is stubborn and does not take that bait (although oh, _oh_), volleys right back, “When you came untouched on my cock?”

This time it’s Timmy who rolls his eyes. “When you held Harper for the first time and I saw the way you looked at her. You are not a guest star parent; you adore her. You’re there for her. You adore Ford too, I dare say.”

Armie does not know how to cope with the emotions that Timmy’s description of him as a good parent stirs in him. Liz tells him often that he is a good father, but that is usually accompanied by a request for financial support, for pre-school tuition, or necessary repairs to their house, so she is easy to dismiss. Although it makes sense. Money was the only reason his own father maintained any type of contact with him, hitting him up every month for drinking and gambling money, but never saying he was proud of Armie for the job that earned him all that cash. And Armie’s good for it too, money is the one thing he knows he can offer to anyone. Luca tells him he’s a good father but Luca is the kind of sap who goes around seeing good in everyone, so he is easy to dismiss. Nick wisely stays out of it, although dotes on Timmy being a father and considers himself to also be a dad to Ford. Maybe his silence about Armie’s parenting in the face of how much he lights up when anything resembling fatherhood wanders near Timmy speaks volumes. That is harder to dismiss. Harper tells him how much she loves her daddy but what do kids know? He has her whole lifetime to fuck her up and let her down. He also doesn’t know what to do with Timmy’s other confession. So he bends down slightly and growls in Timmy’s ear, “You got a deep dicking so you fell in love. How pathetic. And then you learned the guy might not be a perfect Prince Charming so you find someone else to live your happily ever after Stepford fag fantasy.”

The kid is pale to begin with but he turns a shade of white beyond any Crayola crayon and nods his head several times in rapid succession. Armie turns, feeling the satisfaction of a well-landed punch, and saunters down the hallway. 

In front of the villa are two Vespas Armie has rented for the day (and helmets, Armie does not want to imagine the type of hellish fury that would rain down upon him if he somehow broke the family’s beloved Floofy Noodle). He knows when Timmy sees them by the hitch in his breath behind him. He spins around, “What?”

“I - I don’t think, I can’t, I’m…” Timmy grasps around for words like he is trying to find the light switch in a dark unfamiliar room. He’s obviously been thrown off balance not only by the plan to ride scooters but by Armie’s comment upstairs. 

Well fuck him, if he can’t handle a healthy dose of the truth according to Armie Hammer. Still, he’s biting that lip and blinking those eyes and Armie sighs deeply, “Fine. Fine. I’ll drive, you hang on? Do you think you can handle it?” Armie smirks at the double entendre. (His sense of humor may be one of the reasons why Lily-Rose likes to remind him that he won’t be winning any father of the year awards anytime soon as his four year old daughter is more mature than he is.) Luckily Armie’s predictable joke seems to shake Timmy back to normalcy. 

“Yeah, I can, that would be, yes, I can do that,” he nods and reaches out to take one of the helmets. He stares pointedly at Armie, who was going to forgo a helmet because, well, helmet-hair, until he grabs the other one, fastening the buckle under his chin. 

Armie swings a leg over and revs the engine. He feels Timmy take his seat and softly place those long artist’s hands on his waist, barely touching him. Armie doesn’t say anything. Timmy will tighten his grip if he needs to, he’s a big boy. 

Armie would have rather rented a motorcycle but when in Italy...

Armie drives them along winding dirt roads through the blues, greens, and yellows of the countryside before spotting some of the landmarks he was told would be at their destination and pulling off to the side of the road. He engages the kickstand and signals to Timmy to follow him. They haltingly make their way down a steep, grass covered hill, until they are standing on the edge of a spring, fed water from the nearby mountains. Armie holds out his arms in presentation and Timmy looks at him quizzically in response. 

“It’s, it’s, they call this Monet’s Berm. He ah supposedly came here to paint,” Armie tries to explain. A cold sensation washes through his chest. He had planned this all out for Timmy, the artist. He had really put a lot of thought into it as it is so far from anything he would have chosen to do himself. “Oh! Wait!” He pulls the backpack he’s wearing off and unzips it. He pulls a tote bag out and hands it to Timmy. Timmy opens it and peers in, the look on his face communicating he clearly expects something to jump out at him, clearly communicating exactly how much he trusts Armie at this moment. All he finds inside is a brand new sketchbook and the most expensive colored pencils Armie could buy. 

Timmy suddenly sits down, his long legs folding under him like a baby colt’s. “Thank you, Armie,” he says quietly. Armie sinks down to sit beside him. 

“You think my life is like a fairy tale?” Armie realizes that Timmy is continuing their conversation, if it can be called that, from earlier. Armie considers what he knows about Timmy’s family. An older sister, who lives in France, a mother who attends PFLAG and marches in pride parades and with whom Timmy is very close, and his father who is successful enough to have sent Timmy to an Ivy League college. 

“Married parents with two kids, one of each, and a beautiful house in the right neighborhood,” Armie summarizes, trying to keep the espresso-bitter out of his voice. “And now you and Nick can carry on the grand tradition. Mother Chalamet is a real estate agent isn’t she? She’ll help you find the perfect house in suburban paradise for your marital bliss. You already have one kid...maybe you’ll adopt the second? Queer kids are thrown out all the time, do it for the community,” he sneers, “make Uncle Luca proud. Living in some fucking assimilationist fantasy. Sure yes, yeah, I think your life is like a fairy tale.” Keeps the fairy jokes to himself. 

“My parents weren’t, they weren’t always as supportive as they are now. I didn’t get a - a choice in coming out. My mom snooped through my stuff, found some drawings, and told my dad,” Timmy offers.

“Yeah okay, fine but they’re supportive now, they came around.” Armie says this knowing as bad as his family is at least he was given a choice. One he took with his father, at Luca’s urging, when his father told him he was dying. In response to Armie coming out, his father informed him that it was Armie who should be dying. But still, he had a choice. Even so, the kid has it good now, maybe it’s better that the choice was taken from him. 

“Well, I - “ Timmy sighs and looks at the tote bag of art supplies in his hands. “Armie why do you think I use the computer so much for my art?”

Armie knows art. You don’t get as far in the advertising world without a keen eye. And Timmy’s art is...incredible, breath-taking, awe-inspiring, and iconoclastic. Armie had always just assumed that he used the computer as part of his avant garde approach to his craft, and says as much. 

Timmy holds Armie’s gaze, piercing him with that green as sharp as blades of grass. “When I was outed, my dad was unhappy. Unhappy is maybe an understatement. When he found out I had a boyfriend? He wanted to send me to military school.” Armie snorts at this, the image of this kid who moves through the world as if he is constantly surprised that his lanky arms and legs are attached to him. “He didn’t, thanks to my mom. And, and maybe a remark that I made that there was probably lots of butt-fucking going on at an all boys’ boarding school. He did hit me for that though. We didn’t...talk for a long time. My mother was thinking of divorcing him, it got so bad. And then, then after my prom…” Timmy breaks eye contact with Armie and looks away and blinks rapidly before turning back and holding his gaze again. “I was beaten in the head by a kid with a baseball bat. Apparently I set him off by dancing with my boyfriend that night.” Timmy holds eye contact for a moment more before looking down, a pink flush coloring his sharp cheekbones and the tips of his ears, as though he’s worried that Armie will somehow judge him for being weak, for getting attacked.

“I thought you went to an arts high school in the city,” Armie blurts out. He knows this is the wrong thing to say but there is something stuck like a shovel in his throat and these are the only words that make it past. 

Timmy huffs a laugh. “Even city dwelling artists can be violent bigots.” He takes a deep breath and keeps sharing his story as he studies and picks at the skin around his thumbnail. “They weren’t sure if I would survive. I was in a coma. And they weren’t sure if I - I did wake up what, if I would have any, any deficits. Turns out my cerebral motor cortex was the only part of my brain permanently injured. I can’t hold a pencil longer than oh about a half hour, not steady enough to draw with, nothing, nothing detailed at least. Luckily no one writes by hand anymore. Writing emails, texting, even taking notes all done by computer. Wouldn’t even matter except - “

“Except you’re an artist,” Armie finishes, desperate to show Timmy that he is listening, he is hearing him. 

Timmy lets out a breathless startled laugh and Armie has never heard anything more beautiful. 

“I was accepted to the Fine Arts Institute. My dream school. Of course my dad was pissed, didn’t want me to go. Wanted me to study to take over the family business. When I was told the news about my, um, my hand, I did so much research. I found the computer and software I use, stuff that would permit me to still make art, even if it’s, it’s not what I used to do, even if I can’t do that stuff anymore. But it wasn’t enough. There are requirements, foundational studies, that a computer, no matter how sophisticated, would allow me to do. So I was kicked out of the Arts Institute and I went to Dartmouth and studied business like my dad wanted. It helped with the reconciliation. Apparently nearly dying wasn’t enough, I also had to go to his alma mater. But I double majored in fine arts. Business so I can run a gallery, fine arts so maybe one day I can have something hanging in that gallery.”

“Which you’ve already done,” Armie points out, recalling the art show Timmy participated in and maybe, just maybe wishing he had behaved differently. 

“Which I’ve already done” Timmy repeats and darts a glance at Armie. 

Armie, who suddenly realizes how much he didn’t know about Timmy. Who suddenly realizes how goddamn close he came to never even meeting Timmy. “I’m sorry.” Timmy looks at him in surprise. “I’m sorry I assumed…” Armie doesn’t know how to finish that thought and lets it hang there on the tentative line that’s been created between them.

Timmy smirks at Armie’s apology. “What happened to no excuses, no apologies, no regrets?” 

Of course Nick, who had studied the gospel according to Hammer, had taught Timmy all of Armie’s mantras. A lesser man than Timmy might have felt jealous of Nick’s hero worship. A lesser man or someone who didn’t love Armie just as much Nick did. Someone who wasn’t in love with Armie. 

The two of them sit there, in the warm Italian sun gazing at the beautiful scene in front of them, easy in their company. After some time, Timmy opens the tote bag and pulls out the pad and pencils and begins to sketch. Armie lies back and closes his eyes, the movement of the pencil across the thick paper is soothing. It stops suddenly and Armie glances over to see Timmy shaking out his right hand. When he notices Armie looking, he drops his hand into his lap as though that would somehow erase the image from Armie’s mind. As if, as if he’s ashamed to be caught being anything less than perfect. And Armie has to wonder what type of pressure Timmy might have felt growing up in that picture perfect home knowing that he was different, that he couldn’t fit in. Armie sits up and pulls Timmy’s hand into his lap and starts massaging it - his hands big and sure and warm. 

“So yeah my life hasn’t been a fairy tale,” Timmy laughs. “Not even close. I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, I’ve had to settle. So when I was told I would never be able to be with the man I fell in love with, I went after the next best thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve taken the descriptions of Armie’s family and Timmy’s from Queer As Folk, making some changes of course. I should add, same goes for my characterizations of Liz and Lily-Rose, who are also based on characters from QAF. This is fiction. I know none of these people. 
> 
> Also, I know nothing about adoption, especially options around third parent adoption. Let’s pretend that in order for Liz and Lily-Rose to both be legal guardians of the kids, Timmy and Armie had to give up their parental rights. Please don't take legal advice from a fanfic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Timmy had finally pushed back._
> 
> In which we learn more about Armie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note updated tags including “Angst with a Happy Ending” and “Spoilers for Queer As Folk” since I know some in the CMBYN/Charmie fandom are watching the series for the first time. 
> 
> Further, I’ve made Armie’s brother older than him for plot purposes and given the Hammers a working class background. 
> 
> Also, please see endnotes.

Nick had not lied when he told Timmy that Armie did not do relationships. 

Armie did not _does not_ believe in love, in relationships, in dating, in romantic gestures, in any of that. He didn’t believe in words, like “I love you.” (Except for Nick and then it was reflexive. “I love you.” “Always have.” “Always will.” Like finishing a lyric in your favorite song.) 

He had seen words, weaponized, “I’m sorry.” “I won’t do it again.” “Aw sweetheart, it meant nothing.”

He was suspicious of actions too. A grocery store bouquet. A dinner out to the local buffet restaurant. Good behavior for a few days. 

But the truth eventually came out in actions as well and as a result they spoke far more loudly to Armie than words. Disappearing for days at a time and returning reeking of booze and women. Disappearing into the bottle while your husband hits your children. Breaking promises over and over again. 

Armie didn’t have much use for words. He didn’t have much use for romantic relationships. He had seen promises and vows broken. He had been hurt over and over again by the people who had brought him into this world. The people who had told him since he could remember that he was unwanted. They already had Viktor when Dru got pregnant with Armie. The night Michael found out, he had told her to put on her nicest dress, took her to the fanciest restaurant in town (this was before he had developed the habit of drinking and gambling away most of his paycheck, back when he still gave Dru kisses, not punches, to her cheek), poured her a glass of bubbly, and leaned over the table and said, “Dru, you’re getting yourself an abortion because I don’t want another fucking kid.” But Dru was from the church and abortion was a mortal sin, and so Armie was born into a family that didn’t want him and never let him forget it. 

By the time he met Nick, and through Nick, Luca, he had already developed a tough exterior and a disbelief in words over actions. 

But if someone listened to his actions, they spoke loudly.

They spoke every time Armie saved Nick from bullies in high school. Every time he helped Nick with his homework.

They spoke when Armie helped Nick open his beloved comic book store, partially financing it with a loan he never expected to be repaid and by donating an advertising campaign the likes of which had never been seen for a small business in their town. 

They spoke every time Armie accompanied Liz home during college to attend a family event, before she came out and was disowned by her parents.

They spoke every time Liz cried on Armie’s shoulder from the heartbreak of being disowned to heartbreak when she thought she and Lily-Rose were going to break up. 

They spoke when Armie hired Tyler, when he was fresh out of rehab and no one would go near him. They spoke when he convinced Ashton to read the letter Tyler wrote him for step nine. 

They spoke when Armie paid Luca’s mortgage when G’s was struggling. They spoke when he paid for Liz and Lily-Rose’s wedding, because he may not believe in marriage but they did and Armie wanted a stable two-parent home for his daughter. They spoke when he not only paid for Harper’s preschool tuition but Ford’s as well, because he knew Timmy couldn’t afford it and he didn’t want the siblings to be treated differently. 

They spoke when he purchased Timmy’s painting at his first show, as an anonymous buyer. Timmy had been on the receiving end far less of Armie’s actions than the others. And not because he was fairly new to the group. While Armie was mostly sarcastic whenever he wasn’t silent with others, he was outright cruel to Timmy whenever they were without an audience. 

He derived sick satisfaction from a well-landed verbal punch. He had wanted to know how far he could push before Timmy pushed back. But Timmy never pushed back. Timmy never told Nick, or Liz, or Luca. Timmy’s face would grow pale, his eyes would widen, his teeth would catch his bottom lip, his shoulders would slump, and his face would fall. No matter how many times he was hit, Timmy kept following Armie around, being friendly to him, treating him like a human. His refusal to fight back sickened Armie. It reminded him of his mother. 

Armie didn’t think how that made him like his father, the man he swore he would never be like. He had gone so far from him, he came back around the other side. 

Armie knew he was being cruel, but Timmy could take it. Everyone else had survived pain in their lives, Timmy could too. But to learn that Timmy probably had it roughest of any of them? That the pain he had experienced from Armie’s words couldn’t possibly compare to the pain inflicted in a moment by the swing of a bat? That made Armie ill. What right did the world have to hurt someone whose gentle kindness lit him from within like the Gladys the Goose lamp he had put in Harper’s room when she was afraid of the dark? The idea that anyone beyond Armie could make Timmy feel anything at all was suddenly incomprehensible. 

Armie wanted to be all there was of Timmy, the alpha and the omega. Because he had just truly realized that Timmy was in love with him. And Armie long knew how fucked he was for Timmy. 

And suddenly, his behavior up until now sucker punched him in the gut. Timmy had finally pushed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments and support. They really mean the world to me. The best part about fanfiction is getting to grow and develop as a writer. I get to try out new things with literally no risk. Your comments have helped me realize that Armie’s characterization here comes across abusive. He is being based on a character from Queer As Folk who had 5 seasons to develop and grow. Who also, in those 5 seasons, interacted with others in ways that provided some context and nuance to his behavior. I hope I’m able to achieve that here in far less time (or not less time, my favorite fic ever is 600K+ words and counting so y’know #goals). I guess what I’m trying to say, is I hope I can do justice to a redemptive arc for this Armie.
> 
> Sorry this was such a short chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That was the past and this is the present - a present Armie is very much enjoying, So he does what he knows how to do, pulls Timmy by the arm until he lands on top of Armie, letting out a squawk that utterly enchants Armie, and kisses him deeply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating this (and my other works) "TPOI" is taking precedence right now as is, gestures around, real life. So uh, here, have 2800 words of smut. But, like, smut in the service of the plot moving forward.

_“So yeah my life hasn’t been a fairy tale,” Timmy laughs. “Not even close. I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, I’ve had to settle. So when I was told I would never be able to be with the man I fell in love with, I went after the next best thing.”_

Armie leans forward and takes Timmy’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, examining his face, for what he does not know. Timmy meets his gaze, no fear in his eyes, but trembles slightly, his body giving away what his eyes do not. Armie leans in but Timmy meets him halfway. Despite the intensity, the kiss is soft, a melting into each other. For all his sexual experience, including with Timmy himself, Armie has never experienced a kiss like this and wonders if he will ever be able to kiss another man again. 

Timmy places his hands on Armie’s shoulders and pushes. At first Armie is surprised by Timmy’s assertiveness and then his mind splits, part staying in this moment because this moment, being touched by Timmy, being touched by Timmy like this is like nothing he has ever experienced before. The rest of his mind collects facts, like a detective piecing together a story. Timmy offering to drive Armie home. Timmy meeting and holding his gaze, over and over again. Timmy, fearlessly, walking up to naked, dripping wet Armie and kissing him. Timmy surviving a bat to the head and the potential loss of his art, the very thing that keeps his heart beating. Timmy moving to a new city to take a job as assistant to a gallery manager leaving hardly any time for his art but somehow finding a way. Timmy falling in love with Armie and sacrificing, always sacrificing to get as close as possible to the thing he wants most, and whenever finds himself close enough, reaching out, risking falling, to grab that brass ring. 

Timmy might let the world see a goofy, easy-going kid but underneath he’s like steel. Armie may have known before (after they fucked but before today) that he lusted after him, he wanted him again, the way one might return to a restaurant just to get another taste of the chef’s specialty. But Armie realizes, like the punch in the gut he had been waiting for, he really fucking likes him. More than that, he respects him. And this was not the punch in the gut he had expected.

But Timmy is moving away from Armie’s mouth and removing his hands from Armie’s shoulders and before Armie can mourn that loss, he sees Timmy pull his shirt off before tugging at the hem of Armie’s. Armie obliges, grinning at him, his wide smile, the one that shows those pointy canines, the smile few get to see, and pulls his own shirt off. Timmy’s gaze is intense and Armie sees the pointy tip of his tongue peek out from between his lips. For a moment. The next moment crashes into the present as Timmy launches himself at Armie’s waistband, undoing his belt and unbuttoning his fly. Armie assists him by lifting his hips so Timmy can slide his jeans down his hips and over his ass. Once Armie is fully naked, Timmy quickly shucks his shoes and pushes his own jeans down, leaving on the smallest boxer briefs Armie has ever seen and that leave nothing to the imagination, the head of his stiff cock pushing up through the top of his waistband. Armie props himself up on his elbows admiring the view, wondering how much more inspired Monet would have been had Timmy been present when he was painting his masterpieces here. 

Timmy stares down at him, his mouth slightly open, that hint of his tongue popping out again, his eyes traveling up, his gaze lingering between his legs, before resuming the journey to his chest and then his face.

“Beautiful. You’re so fucking beautiful.” Timmy’s voice, surprisingly deep for a man as slender as he is, is hoarse with arousal. 

Armie’s never been called beautiful before. He knows people think it of him but he has never had anyone tell him to his face, probably assuming he gets told all the time and not wanting to inflate the stud’s ego further. 

“Do you ever stop talking?” He loves Timmy’s talking, he just doesn’t know what to do under this penetrating gaze that seems to be seeing the very truth of him. 

“Only when my mouth is full.” Timmy flashes him a slightly crooked grin that crinkles and takes over his entire face. They are already warmed by the Italian summer sun but Armie feels a warmth unlike what he’s felt so far today, ever perhaps. 

Armie gestures to his dick, jutting out proudly, rock hard and weeping, “Well get to it then.”

Timmy drops to his knees immediately and begins crawling between Armie’s legs, which spread further apart as though they are each north poles of a magnet being pushed apart by a force greater than Armie could control if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t. 

Timmy takes Armie into his mouth and Armie staves off coming immediately with a debate in his mind about whether Timmy’s mouth was made for witty banter that makes Armie laugh in ways he never has or if it was made to wrap around Armie’s cock, as though he were trying to suck the heart Armie’s been told his whole life he doesn’t have, out through his piss hole. Armie is no stranger to blow jobs, his numbers probably rank in the thousands by now, but he’s ever experienced anything quite like Timmy’s mouth before. He finds his fingers tangled in unruly curls, not pushing him down - he doesn’t need to as Timmy has swallowed him whole - but just firmly holding him, grounding himself more than anything. Timmy pulls off from Armie's cock and Armie is grateful to be given some relief until he feels Timmy’s soft, wet lips at his balls and his hand taking the place of his mouth and tongue on Armie’s shaft. Armie begins to feel that telltale sensation that starts in his balls, where Timmy’s mouth is doing something demonic, and spreading through his body, and he uses that firm grounding grip in Timmy’s curls to pull him away. 

Timmy looks up at him blinking, his cheeks streaked with tear tracks from deep-throating Armie, his lips shiny and puffy and red, and says, voice even more hoarse than before, “What? Oh sorry, did you not - I know some guys they don’t like - “ 

“No, no, it was good.” Armie mentally slaps his forehead “good?” “It was fucking incredible. Just a little too… incredible. I want to - god - I want to be inside you,” Timmy smirks at that and Armie rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to come like this, not now, not this time, at least.”

It doesn’t cross Armie’s mind that there may not be a next time.

Timmy nods with understanding and reaches over to his jeans and pulls out a condom and a small packet of lube and, wordlessly, hands them to Armie. 

“You - you brought a condom and lube?” Armie feels his forehead crinkle and his eyebrows draw together in confusion.

Timmy looks down and shrugs one shoulder and says, softly, “I was a Boy Scout, always prepared.” 

Armie lets out a chuckle, “You were a Boy Scout? That’s so...butch of you.” 

Timmy lifts his chin, a mannerism that Armie has come to associate with the inner strength that hides behind his soft, fun exterior, and which pokes at Armie’s heart every time he witnesses it. “I had to. That was my father’s compromise - he would let me have art lessons if I joined the scouts.” 

Armie isn’t sure how to respond to these small confessions that poke his heart in a different way than Timmy’s defiant chin, although he recognizes the two are related, cousins. He would say sorry but he does not believe Timmy wants to hear that from him, nor would it change anything. That was the past and this is the present - a present Armie is very much enjoying, So he does what he knows how to do, pulls Timmy by the arm until he lands on top of Armie, letting out a squawk that utterly enchants Armie, and kisses him deeply. 

Armie flips them over so Timmy is on his stomach, tears his briefs off, and starts opening him up with lube-slick fingers. Armie watches mesmerized as his fingers pump in and out of Timmy, scissoring them. He runs his thumb along Timmy’s hole where it is stretched, entranced with the point of their joining, with the way Timmy’s body opens for him. Transfixed he bends down and his tongue follows his thumb’s trail. At the touch of Armie’s tongue to Timmy’s rim, Timmy gasps. Armie looks up to see Timmy looking back over his shoulder, and smirks at him. “You know what rimming is, don’t you?”

Timmy groans with pleasure and returns his forehead to rest on his crossed forearms. Armie turns his attentions back and licks, intermixing long swipes of his tongue with small little licks and bites, continuing to loosen Timmy with his fingers until he could take a third, and instead of adding another digit, Armie stiffens his tongue, sliding in alongside, in a movement that has Timmy gasping, rutting against the ground, and Armie moaning at the taste of him. Armie’s pleasure has been subsumed by ensuring Timmy’s, but he has been unconsciously moving his hips in small thrusts, mimicking Timmy’s, both of them trying to grasp at relief through friction. 

Armie crooks his fingers, feeling around until Timmy’s head pops up off his forearms and he lets out a noise that’s something between a moan and whimper before a slew of curses. “Fuck fuck fuck, _Armie,_ god.”

Armie pulls his mouth away from Timmy’s ass, “You called?” He flexes his fingers again eliciting that same magical noise.

“Arm-Armie,” Timmy pants. “I’m going to - if you don’t - I’m gonna - I want to - oh god, oh fuck, you need to stop.” 

As soon as Armie stops, removing his fingers as gently as he can, wiping them on the grass beside them, he realizes how close to coming he was himself, just from rutting against the ground, and the taste and sound and feel of Timmy. He slips on the condom and lubes himself up while Timmy raises up onto his knees. Armie frowns slightly at that and touches Timmy’s hip. Timmy glances over his shoulder, confusion clear in his eyes. “I - I want to see you,” Armie whispers. He’s had guys in every position imaginable, but something about this making this request, makes him feel splayed open and vulnerable. Timmy’s eyes turn gentle, soften back into a sexy, half-hooded lust-filled gaze, realizing what Armie is asking and turns over. Armie cups the back of his head as he lies onto the ground, remembering his head injury, wanting to protect him from any potential harm, even that which Armie may have only just created in his imagination. He helps him lift his legs onto Armie’s shoulders and slides home, groaning at the feeling of Timmy’s tight heat surrounding him, clenching around him. 

“Like the first time,” Timmy whispers to him.

“Like the first time,” Armie repeats, a choir singing the chorus. 

Timmy bends himself in half to grasp the back of Armie’s head and pull him into a searing kiss. It catches Armie off-guard and he loses himself in this kiss, filled with an unnamed emotion. He’s called back to the earth when he feels Timmy’s hand on his cheek, “Armie,” his voice gentle, like eyelashes against his cheek, “if - if you don’t move, like _now_” his voice turns urgent. Armie comes back into himself and begins to move his hips. 

Gently at first, until Timmy starts talk, “Fuck, Armie, harder, make me feel it.” Another side of Timmy that Armie hasn’t realized was there before, before today. Before today when Armie was confused by Timmy, the guy who was supposed to be just another fuck, who was supposed to be some silver spooned rich kid who had never known hardship, who was supposed to be no one to him, but some nobody he couldn’t stop thinking about and had to come up with some ridiculous nickname to reinforce his denial. Until today, when each thing he learns about Timmy opens an artery previously blocked, fully allowing his heart beat for the first time, to affirm some intuition that he had stuffed so deep inside himself he had forgotten it was there. Until today when Armie has finally felt like himself in a way he never had before. 

Armie snaps his hips in an unrelenting rhythm, hitting Timmy’s spot with every push and pull. Timmy’s hands grasp at Armie’s biceps until they slip off, and then grasp at the grass beneath them, one leg remains on Armie’s shoulder, the other slipped down and around his waist, both heels digging into Armie’s flesh, spurring him on, his eyes shut, his mouth panting open. “T-touch me, Armie, fuck fuck, I need, touch me.”

Armie bends down and lets his voice rumble in Timmy’s ear, “I think you can come like this.” Timmy’s eyes fly open and Armie catches his gaze and holds it. “You can, you can. Yes, that’s right, just like this. I’ve got you.” Armie doesn’t speed up or fuck him harder, it’s a matter of just a few degrees if either of those would even be possible. But he holds him, holds his eyes, until Timmy is clenching and shaking all around him and in his arms, hot liquid seeping between them almost before Timmy realizes he’s coming and then sounds pour from his mouth. If Armie never gets this again, he wants those sounds burned into his memory and he could live on just that alone and be a happy man. A happy enough man. 

Armie comes but it feels almost secondary to him. It feels almost secondary and it is the best orgasm he has ever experienced. It overtakes his entire being and he now knows what it is like to have an orgasm in his toes, and the tips of his ears, and the small of his back. 

He pulls out gently and collapses on top of Timmy, who is boneless below him. 

They are covered in grass stains and dirt and sweat and come and only then does Armie remember the picnic blanket, the entire picnic in fact, he has in his bag. Like the art supplies, he had given the planning of this day a lot of thought. He reaches behind himself, blindly, and grabs it, and wraps it around them. 

Armie inhales the sex-drenched scent of Timmy, wants to bottle it and keep it for himself, and on the exhale, breathes out “Amazing,” elongating the ahhhh. 

“I’m the best you ever had,” Timmy smiles up at him, eyes still half hooded and glazed, grin a little dopey. 

“Mmmm,” Armie considers, there _is_ a long history to consider.

Timmy digs his slender fingers between Armie’s ribs, catching him off guard by tickling him, making him fall a little further, but what’s the harm in further when you’ve already fallen? Timmy rolls them over so he’s on top. “I’m the best you’ve ever had, admit it.”

Armie giggles. He actually giggles, “Okay, okay, you’re the best I’ve ever had.”

Timmy collapses on top of him, using him as a mattress, and Armie whispers between Timmy’s sweat-matted curls, into his ear, “And I’m the best you’ve ever had.”

Timmy hums, “You weren’t bad, not bad at all.” And so sets off another round of tickling. Armie cannot remember when he has ever laughed this much with anyone, certainly not with a lover. Maybe when he has the rare opportunity to be alone with Harper and just be silly. 

Later, after they brave the cold of the river to rinse off.

Later, after they let their bodies dry in the hot Italian sun.

Later, after they polish off the food and wine Armie brought.

Later, after the sun begin to set and they begrudgingly put their clothes back on. 

Later, as they walk hand in hand back up the short steep hill to the vespa, Armie pushes Timmy up against a tree and holds him there, just enjoying, for a moment, the weight and warmth of him in his arms. Timmy looks up at him through thick eyelashes, and breathlessly laughs, “This was the best day of my life.” 

Armie gazes down at him, a smile threatening to lift the corners of his mouth, he bites his lips between his teeth for a moment before responding, “Even if it was ridiculously romantic.” 

Timmy gives him a smile that shines like the sun in the dusky evening and Armie bends down as if to kiss him. He pauses and looks into Timmy’s eyes, a question is asked and answered, and then he gently presses a kiss to his mouth, and then another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put this at the last chapter of TPOI but it bears repeating:
> 
> I know things are scary out there for many of us with the news about COVID-19. Please take recommended precautions to protect our communities especially those most vulnerable among us. Fandom and fanfic have gifted me with incredible community around the world - let us take care of ourselves and each other, especially now. May you and your loved ones be well and safe.
> 
> I'm thatajthings on tumblr - reach out there for anything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m, I’m getting married…” Timmy’s words spill forth, crashing into each other. “I’m getting married tomorrow!”
> 
> “You are,” Armie responds. 
> 
> “To your best friend,” Timmy continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's pretend it hasn't been a few days shy of 5 months since I updated this, shall we? Apologies for that thing we're pretending didn't happen, though. And thank you to all of you still reading, to everyone who asked about this fic, and to everyone who was then understanding when I said it wasn't abandoned but I wasn't feeling inspired. 
> 
> One more chapter after this...

Timmy’s hands are more firm around Armie’s waist as they ride back to the villa. He digs his fingers into the sides of Armie’s abdomen and his thumbs caress his flanks. At one point he drops his forehead to the space between Armie’s shoulder blades and the edge of the helmet digging into his flesh should be uncomfortable. It’s not. His skin is heated by puffs of hot damp breaths against his shirt, he imagines a spot forming there, marking his shirt, marking the skin beneath it, leaving a souvenir of this day they shared.

Armie pulls up in front of the villa, gravel ricocheting in their wake and hops off, wondering if there’s a sexy way to dismount from a Vespa. Wondering if there’s a reason he feels invested in Timmy seeing him as sexy. 

Timmy slides off the Vespa and unhooks his helmet. He’s long limbed and awkward and Armie can’t take his eyes off him. Timmy glances up and catches Armie staring, he chews the corner of his mouth for a moment before a grin that begins with slightly crooked lips, revealing slightly uneven teeth, and moves upwards as skin pushes its way up and over sharp cheekbones, softening them, and to his eyes, lit up and glowing. A breathless laugh tumbles from those pink lips and Armie reaches out to grab his hand. 

It is the second time in one day they’ve held hands. Armie can probably count on these hands the number of times he has held hands with another person. If he doesn’t count the times he’s held Harper’s hand, when she was learning to walk, when crossing the street, when she felt the inexplicable urge to shove her warm and candy-sticky little paw in his large one, then he can count that number on the one hand currently wrapped around Timmy’s pale and elegant one. Mostly he’s held Nick’s hand. Nick has a way of shoving his hand in Armie’s during moments of tension during the superhero movies he loves so much. And Armie allows it, like he allows most things with Nick.

They start off walking up the steps to the villa and then, laughter dripping from their mouths, sprint up the stairs to Armie’s room and fling the door open. Armie hardly needs to turn the light on, the look on Timmy’s face is sunshine bright enough. He pulls him into a kiss, his palm on the small of his back, the fingers of his other hand tangled in his curls, his tongue diving in, laughter still leaking from the corners of Timmy’s mouth, and Armie wants to shut him up. He wants this kiss, their kiss, to steal the breath from his laughter, wants to leave him without words as he’s left Armie. 

Armie without a quip or a sarcastic comment. The world should feel off-balance but the space between his eyebrows feels uncoiled and his shoulders feel like boulders that had been placed there by his parents, by his friends, by the mothers of his daughter, have been removed. The weight of expectations he was expected to sink to, the weight of the expectation that no matter how the small box he was placed in, he was still expected to save the day, like one of those superheroes. The coil between his eyes from balancing the numbers, making sure everyone had enough and then some. 

He’s speechless as he pulls the slender body against his. Speechless with the gift Timmy has given him, the freedom from expectations, the freedom from being anyone except who he is, the freedom of being seen through an artist’s eyes, truly as he is. 

Armie lets his hand slide from the small of Timmy’s back into the gap between his pants and his skin, resting his hand on that pert bottom, his index finger resting along that valley between those pale half globes, prevented from delving further by the fabric of Timmy’s boxer briefs. And for once Armie doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind that there isn’t an immediate and direct route to sex. He’s enjoying this - kissing and groping like they are teenagers. When Armie was a teenager, he was using fake IDs to get into clubs with back rooms to fuck and suck his way through every good looking guy and half of the not so good looking guys. He’s been given a second chance, he thinks, at this part. A chance at body pressed against body, kissing without a destination, hands exploring, learning the topography but going no further. 

He’s surprised when Timmy pulls away. His eyes wide - wide like they were outside the villa but different. A different tune, a different melody plays there. He bites his lower lip between his teeth and releases it with breathless words, “What have we done?”

Armie pulls his attention away from the white marks left on pink flesh to the words those blush-colored lips are saying. He shrugs, his shoulders suddenly feeling heavy again. “What do you mean?”

“I’m, I’m getting married…” Timmy’s words spill forth, crashing into each other. “I’m getting married tomorrow!”

“You are,” Armie responds. 

“To your best friend,” Timmy continues. 

Armie shrugs again. He’s speechless but for all the wrong reasons. He desperately wants to rewind to the time he was speechless because he thought Timmy saw him, saw him and knew him and accepted him. He starts to feel the edges of that box encroaching on him and wonders how much more of himself he may need to cut off to fit this time.

“Don’t you have anything to say? What are we going to do?” Timmy’s voice is high and trembling.

“We? There is no we, Timmy. You’re going to do whatever it is you want to do.” Inside that box, Armie only knows to hit hard and fast and think later. Think later, if at all, if not numbed by booze and drugs and sex. Maybe he can track down Elio, he wasn’t a half bad lay. 

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Timmy’s eyes are still wide and shining now, not with the joy from before but unshed tears that he refuses to let find their way down his cheeks. Armie hasn’t forgotten how strong Timmy is, one of a number of things he learned today. 

“What do you want me to say, Timmy? I didn’t promise anything to either of you.” He looks at a spot just beyond Timmy’s shoulder. 

Timmy, braver than Armie ever knew, steps up to him, chest to chest and looks up into his eyes. “Don’t you care?” 

Armie pulls Timmy into a tight embrace, presses his lips against his curls, and inhales the scent just behind his ear, just in case this is all he has. And it probably is. This is probably the last chance he has to imprint Timmy on all his senses. He whispers, low and deep, “It’s your choice Timmy, where you want to be.”

Timmy pulls back from the embrace and looks up into Armie’s eyes again, tears clinging to eyelashes. He searches his face for a moment before nodding and stepping backwards. Armie feels a sudden coldness where Timmy’s body was once pressed against his and he thinks he didn’t have enough time, he’s already forgetting the texture of Timmy’s skin, the feeling of his curls wrapped around his fingers, the scent that is all warmth and Timmy. He just needs a moment more but Timmy walks out of Armie’s suit, closing the door behind him.

Armie flips on the light and passes the mini bar on his way to the couch where he sinks into the deep seat and drops his head back, tilting the small bottle of bourbon into his mouth, almost not tasting it as it pours down his throat. He could count down to what he knows is coming.

He could set his watch to it. He hears a firm knock on his door and it opens before he can say anything. Nick has always had a key to his loft and has never been shy about feeling at home in his best friend’s place, in his life. He walks in and stands before Armie, fists balled up and on his hips. He looks a little like a caped crusader, Armie thinks with an internal chuckle, the wine and sun from earlier are mixing with the bourbon, and the rollercoaster of emotions. Booze and sun and sex he can handle, he has built himself as a machine to welcome these onslaughts and then some. It must be the emotions that are making him want to laugh, no, giggle at the image of Nick before him, he concludes. He has no tolerance for them and, he figures, he won’t have to develop one now. 

“What did you do?” Nick’s words mirror Timmy’s from earlier.

“Do you want me to draw you a diagram?” Armie smirks at Nick.

“Fuck you Armie, fuck you.” Nick’s cheeks are flushed despite his olive skin, his eyes bright, his lips a firm line. “I finally had something you didn’t. You have the job, you have the fancy loft, you have half of the gay community wanting to get in your pants, or you in their pants, or whatever! You even have a kid, for all she matters to you. And I finally, finally had something you didn’t - a relationship, a real adult relationship with a great guy and you had to fuck it up. What is it, Armie? Are you jealous? Because if you’re jealous, all those guys who want in your pants, I’m sure none of them would mind being - “

“Nick,” Armie doesn’t bother to move from his position, legs spread wide, one knee up resting on the couch, arms resting on the back. “Nick, listen to me. Are you listening?”

Nick nods, his features beginning to soften. They each take their role in this familiar dance.

“Two consenting adults, Nick. Do the math. Why is it always my fault?”

“Because you - you must have - you’re _you._”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You know, Armie. If you don’t know, if you don’t know by now, I don’t know what to tell you.” Nick’s voice sounds like something has broken, finally, between them. 

Armie sighs, rolls his lips between his teeth, and closes his eyes. When he opens them again he doesn’t avoid Nick’s gaze, although his relaxed posture doesn’t change, his voice is calm and firm. “Do you want me there tomorrow?”

“I - I don’t know Armie.” Nick looks down at his dirty sneakers, laces in knots, and back up again. “I never imagined I would get married without you.” 

Neither of them remark on the double meaning of that statement. 

“Don’t worry Niki, I won’t ruin your special day,” his voice is cutting. 

Nick’s eyes turn down at the corners and his mouth matches. His shoulders slump and he turns and walks out of Armie’s suite.

Armie knocks on Liz and Lily-Rose’s door the next morning. He’s booked on a flight out that day but something, like a magnet, pulls him to their suite. He wants to see Harper in her flower girl outfit, if he’s honest with himself, which he’s not. He exhausted his year’s quota for emotion the day before. 

Lily-Rose opens the door, sees Armie, and shuts it with a bang. Armie sighs heavily and knocks again. This time Liz opens the door, pulling her dressing gown around her as she steps out into the hallway and looks around, never wanting to cause a scene. 

“Armie, you are unbelievable,” her whisper is hard and cutting. 

“I know, I am,” Armie smirks. This box is familiar, if not comfortable. 

“You nearly ruined their wedding. Your _best friend’s_ wedding,” her whisper grows louder.

“But I didn’t, did I? They’re still getting married,” Armie shrugs but actually wonders if the wedding is still on, if maybe Timmy didn’t choose Armie after all. 

“Barely, no thanks to you.” She clutches her dressing gown more tightly across her chest. 

“Liz,” he sighs. “There were two of us there.”

“Oh Armie, that’s unfair. You’re - you’re you,” she gestures towards him and her silk gown falls open a bit, revealing her tanned décolletage. Armie thinks that’s not the part that’s unfair. 

“Well, I’m leaving, okay? I won’t be there infect anything or anyone else with my presence,” Armie rubs his hand over his mouth. “I just - could I say good-bye to Harper before I leave?” 

Liz glances back at the closed door as if it holds some answers. “Lily-Rose doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”

“What do you think?” Armie can’t stand when couples start thinking as some conjoined unit. 

Liz glances at the floor and back up at Armie. “I agree.”

“Why?” Armie asks. 

“Why? Armie, after what you did, I hardly think you’re an appropriate - “

“Did you tell her? Did you explain to my four year old daughter that Dada fucked Uncle Timmy the night before Uncle Timmy married Uncle Nick?”

“Armie!” Liz’s voice rises now, she’s forgotten her distaste for making a scene. This is the Liz Armie likes, this is the feisty friend he agreed to donate sperm to father a child for. “Of course not. And you know she calls Timmy Dad.” Armie shouldn’t have drank that strong Italian espresso on an empty stomach, he suddenly has the sour cold feeling of heartburn.

“Well did you? Because if you didn’t, then what’s the difference to her? All she’s going to know is that dada left without saying good-bye,” and Armie suddenly feels like he’s being set up. 

“Fine,” Liz pouts, but the corners of her eyes are soft. “One moment.” She disappears back into the room before Harper steps out, hair curled and in a frilly dress. 

“Dada!” She shrieks and throws her chubby arms around him. 

“Hey there baby girl,” Armie has always refused to use a baby voice talking to her but he can’t deny there’s a difference in his tone, a gentleness that no one else gets to hear. Maybe Timmy would’ve. But that’s another life he could have had, he’s having this one instead. 

He tries to explain to her that he has to leave early. Something came up, that old euphemism, lost on a four year old. She nods seriously and squeezes him tightly and kisses his cheek and the heartburn clears up. 

He carries the feeling of his baby girl in his arms back to the States.

Back in his life he tries to lose himself in his habits. Tries to work late and party even later. Tries to ignore the holes in his life that Nick and time with everyone at G’s used to fill. Tries not to think about Timmy.

He tries not to think about Timmy’s laugh. He likes Timmy’s laugh a lot. It’s indulgent, and breathless, and always kind. Making Timmy laugh had been, if he’s honest and what the fuck does he have to lose now, the highlight of, yes, most of Armie’s days. He squirrels those memories away like food for the winter; something to nourish him during the long, long cold. Because it’s cold now.

Yes, the beat of the music at the club and the half-naked bodies writhing in time with each other remain hot. The nameless guys he brings to the back room or, more rarely these days, to his bed are also hot. 

But it’s cold now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the other side of the door stands Timmy, curls wild, eyes bright, and cheeks flushed. Armie says nothing but holds the door open wide enough for Timmy to walk through. He’s not sure why Timmy is there but as he has said, Timmy can choose where he wants to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end... thank you to everyone who has read, commented, kudos'd. I've appreciated each and every one. 
> 
> (I posted chapter 6 yesterday so make sure you haven't accidentally skipped that or this chapter won't make much sense!)

Armie wakes up to a loud and insistent knocking at his front door. He lifts his head from his pillow and looks around. No one else is in his bed. It could be anytime, he keeps the area surrounding his bed blackout curtain dark. It helps with hangovers and sleeping late enough on weekends to avoid having to face the empty hours of the days he doesn’t have work to distract him. Not that he doesn’t go into work on weekends. 

He heaves himself out of bed and walks to the door, where the knocking has not ceased in its frequency or intensity, scratching his chest and running a hand through his hair - flat on one side of his head and sticking up on the other. 

On the other side of the door is Luca, holding a pan in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. He looks Armie up and down and raises his eyebrows and then shrugs his shoulders. He shoves the pan into Armie’s hands and walks into the loft. Armie follows him, eyes squinted against the light streaming in through the loft’s windows. 

Armie is completely naked.

“Lasagne, Armie,” Luca informs him. “Forty five minutes at 400 degrees.”

Armie places the lasagne on the counter and preheats the stove. He looks from the lasagne to the bottle of wine Luca has deposited next to the pan and then to Luca. “Isn’t it too early for,” he gestures at the items. “Wine?”

“It’s 2 PM, Armie,” Luca says gently.

“Oh,” Armie responds and drops onto one of the bar stools, the metal seat cold against his bare ass. 

Luca leans over and grabs his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Go get dressed. Then we talk, yes?”

Armie has known Luca half his life, knows this is not a question. He pushes himself off the bar stool and disappears back into the area blocked off for his bed. When he returns he’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans broken in so they’re soft enough they could pass for sweats, with the top button unbuttoned. When he returns he hears the chime indicating the oven is preheated and sees Luca putting the pan in. “Luca, I can reheat lasagne. You already run the restaurant, you don’t need to wait on me here. You’re a guest.”

“A guest? I’m offended, Armie,” he pauses. “We’ve missed you at family dinners.”

Armie raises a single eyebrow. 

“What’s this?” Luca gestures to Armie’s face. 

“I didn’t know I was still welcome,” he admits.

“Nonsense, you’re family, are you not?” Armie shrugs. “Whatever happens, tesoro, family is where you’re welcome no matter what you’ve done. I thought I had taught you that by now.” He had but the lessons of Armie’s biological family are hard to forget, both exist, warring inside Armie’s psyche. “Harper misses you.”

“I see Harper,” Armie’s voice has an edge to it, a prickly barbed wire to protect what he has fought hard for. Liz brings Harper to the park every few weeks and he gets to play with her there and, when she exhausts him - he might be able to dance all night at the club but running after her on the playground somehow hits him differently - he sits next to Liz on the bench and they watch her and catch up, carefully sidestepping any land mines. 

“I know you do, but she doesn’t understand why her papa is not at dinner with everyone else.”

“I’m not her papa, I’m just - “ Armie believed he did the right thing in signing over his parental rights to Lily-Rose. Harper has two excellent parents and, yet, somehow he’s still criticized for being a poor father. 

“A cameo appearance,” Luca finishes the old refrain. “Sell it to someone who’s buying.”

Armie looks to the side, out the floor to ceiling window, not wanting to let hope hurt him again. “I’m sure she has plenty of papa time with Dad Timmy and Uncle Nick.” 

“This is not the same, Armie, and you know it.” Luca’s voice is very rarely anything but kind and right now it has an edge to it. 

“I’m not sure Nick wants me there,” Armie admits.

“Ah,” Luca sighs. “_Ecco qui_ here it is.” Armie steels himself for whatever is coming. He’s earned it. “My Niki, he has had a lot of growing up to do. So different from you, no? I remember you at fourteen, fifteen, already an adult. Grown up far too quickly. I may never forgive your parents for that. And Niki? I wanted to keep him innocent as long as possible, the world is a cruel place as you know too well. I wanted to protect him from that.” Luca begins to open the wine and pour them each a glass. “And then he comes home from school, some new kid who defended him. Of course I want to meet you, this _eroe,_ this real life superhero. And you come into my home and I remember thinking, well this is what trouble looks like.” 

Armie closes his eyes.

“Trouble for my Niki, I thought. But also trouble for you. And then I thought I was wrong, you protected Niki from the world in ways I never could. You became my _eroe_ as well.”

“I tried to protect him, Luca. I did,” Armie’s voice is thick. He loves Nick in nearly every way a person can love another. 

“I know, _tesoro_, I know. Just like I did. And that was both our mistakes. In protecting him, we never let him grow up. He admired you, looked up to you, expected you to be between him and any danger. When the real danger was you all along.”

“I - I never - “ Armie’s eyes widen at the accusation lobed at him, that he’s harmed Nick. Recent actions with his fiancé notwithstanding.

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t ask him to fall in love with you. But you never dissuaded him either.” Armie looks down at his hands. “I don’t blame you, my dear. Already too grown up at fifteen but never an adult either. You never learned that sometimes the truth hurts but love, family, will be there on the other side. And the truth, it is necessary.” 

Armie looks up at Luca again and sees the years of trying to keep this family together, through heartbreak and fights, and births and falling in love painted in the lines across his gentle face.

“And then my Niki, he met Timmy.” Armie’s mouth twists up in a half smile at Luca’s pronunciation of “Teemee.” “And I thought, ah yes, finally. He will fall in love with someone who loves him back and his heart can move on from you and you two can finally be the brothers of the heart as you were meant to be.” Luca sips his wine and Armie extends his hand for his glass. Luca bats it away and gets up to fill a glass of water. “This first Armie.” 

“So he fell in love with Timmy and got his happily ever after,” Armie summarizes. “They can live out their Stepford fantasies and everyone can move on.”

“What about you?” Luca probes with a quiet voice.

“What about me?” Armie is unused to anyone asking about him after he’s discharged his duty, made sure everyone has what they want and need, no matter the cost to him, financial or otherwise. 

“Your love? Your happiness?” Luca speaks like a poet and of things Armie has read about, studied in school but never truly understood, not at a soul level. 

“It’s never mattered to anyone before, why should they start caring now?” Armie schools his face into neutrality.

“Don’t you care?” Luca pushes, as only he’s allowed to. 

Armie shrugs.

“Ah you distract me,” Luca smacks the back of Armie’s head. “I was saying, he met Timmy and I thought I could finally rest easy. But I was wrong - here they were, supposedly in love. And they were, but not with each other.” Armie stares at him. “No they were both in love with you and since neither could have you, well, here we are.” 

“Does it really matter? Neither of them can have me, like you said.” Armie resists the urge to fidget, to get up and pace. 

“Is that true?” Luca rests his chin in his hands and raises his eyebrows. 

“I’m not in love with Nick, Luca. I’m sorry,” and Armie is, sorry that is. Luca is the parent he was robbed of with his own family and, like the others, he wants to give him anything he needs or wants but he cannot give him this. He cannot make himself love Nick in the only way he doesn’t. 

“_Grazie dio_ for that,” Luca chuckles. “You would make a terrible couple. I can only imagine, Niki would be back in his childhood room at least once a week. No, no, I’m talking about Timmy.” 

“Timmy?”

“Yes, my darling boy, Timmy,” Luca’s always gentle voice softens around the edges even more, like Armie’s jeans. “Do you love him?”

“Does it matter?” Armie isn’t being stubborn, he truly wants to know. 

“Is this what I asked you? No. Do you love him?” Luca is the only one of them that sees Armie’s walls and pushes against them as though they are not there. 

“It’s his choice where he wants to be.” Armie recites this like a prayer, memorized and repeated. 

“Do you love him?” Luca pushes against the bricks. 

Armie feels his eyes prick with the pain of unshed tears. He nods and can’t bring himself to do much more. He rests his chin on the edge of his water glass. 

Luca places a hand on his shoulder for a moment before moving it to Armie’s cheek, turning his face to look at him. “Then you must tell him. He deserves to have all the information in making his choice.”

The oven timer goes off and Luca stands. “Ah, that’s my cue.” 

“Luca, I can get the lasagne,” Armie stands and begins to move to the kitchen.

“Yes of course you can. You will. I must leave now.” 

“But the lasagne?”

“For you. Like you said, I serve this all day at the restaurant and I need a break. I’m thinking sushi.” Armie walks him to the door. “Okay then, _tesoro mio, ciao._” He kisses him on each cheek and bats the back of his head for good measure. “Be a good boy, yes? And family dinners, Sunday, you haven’t forgotten where I live?”

“I haven’t, I’ll see you there.” Armie knows he won’t break his promise to Luca. How the others respond at his presence, well that’s Luca’s problem now. 

Armie watches old movies all day, the ones that comfort him, although he would never use that word. He recites all the dialogue under his breath as the lasagne sits on the counter glaring at him. 

He’s part way through _One Eyed Jacks_ when there’s a knock at his door, more tentative than Luca’s earlier that day. Armie pushes himself off the couch and walks to the door grumbling about this being why it’s dangerous to have friends and more generally about being interrupted during his busy day. 

On the other side of the door stands Timmy, curls wild, eyes bright, and cheeks flushed. Armie says nothing but holds the door open wide enough for Timmy to walk through. He’s not sure why Timmy is there but as he has said, Timmy can choose where he wants to be. 

Timmy follows his nose to the kitchen counter and opens a few drawers before finding a fork and beginning to eat the lasagne directly from the pan. 

“I don’t think that’s hot anymore,” Armie offers from where he has returned to his spot on the couch.

“‘S’okay,” Timmy says around a mouthful of food. “Luca’s lasagne tastes good at any temperature.” He pauses. “Not frozen though; I only made that mistake once.”

“You tried to eat frozen lasagne?”

Timmy shrugs, “Munchies.” 

“What are you doing here?” Timmy can choose where he wants to be but he has to make a choice. Armie can’t stand indecision. 

“Do you want me to leave?” Timmy looks up from the pan and makes eye contact with Armie. 

“I didn’t say that.” Timmy returns to eating for a few minutes, the dialogue from the movie and Armie’s whispering the only noises in the large open space. “Won’t your husband wonder where you are?”

“No - “

“Oh have you inserted tracking devices into each other’s underpants or something?” Sarcasm is one of the bricks in the walls surrounding Armie.

“He’s not my husband,” Timmy says before shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. 

Armie shifts his eyes from the screen but otherwise doesn’t move. “He’s not?”

“You haven’t been around” Timmy’s tone is defensive. 

“So.”

“If you had been you would know we called off the wedding,” Timmy shrugs at the pan and continues to dig into it.

“We?” Armie usually doesn’t press for more conversation but the details here seem important.

“Well, yeah, kinda,” Timmy continues his casual demeanor and focus on the food in front of him. 

“He called off the wedding and now you’re here hoping for a second chance at your second choice?” The box is familiar, hit hard and fast and think later. “I don’t want to be a second choice, Timmy. I might not have much - many people in my life - but I’m not desperate for scraps either.” 

“Armie, I already told you, you’re my first choice.” Timmy takes another bite, chews, swallows. “And I want to be someone’s first choice too.” 

Armie sighs, “Nick’s crush on me is a childhood fantasy, Timmy. He loves you, we both know that.”

“God you really think the world revolves around you, don’t you?” Timmy rolls his eyes.

“It doesn’t?” Armie rolls his lips between his teeth. 

“Shut up Armie. No, I wasn’t Nick’s first choice and, I hate to break it to you - I hope your fragile ego can handle this - but neither are you. Not anymore.” Timmy stares at Armie from across the counter.

“Not anymore? Another thing I fucked up?”

“Are you a goldfish? Do you not remember,” Timmy looks at his wrist where a watch would be but is instead adorned with several thin silver bracelets, “several seconds ago when I told you the world doesn’t revolve around you?”

“I suppose that does sound familiar. Go on,” Armie gestures with his hand.

“When I told Nick what happened between us, he told me he was willing to forgive me. He said ‘I’ll still marry you’ and that he could tolerate me cheating,” Timmy’s voice has an edge to it that Armie has hardly ever heard there before, if ever. 

“I fail to see the problem.”

“I’m like you Armie, I don’t want to be second choice, I don’t want someone who is willing to tolerate me.” Timmy looks down at the tray of lasagne and pushes some of it around with his fork. “We talked, a lot, that night. It turns out that he cheated on me too - not in - earlier.” He looks up at Armie, his eyes wet, and something like a rope lassos around Armie and pulls him up, off the couch, and to Timmy, standing beside his barstool. 

“Who the fuck did he cheat on you with?” He balls his fists by his sides. 

Timmy shrugs. “Some queer studies professor who came into the store, looking for comic books with homoerotic themes. I guess they hit it off.”

Armie stands next to Timmy helplessly. He’s no good with words. He’s better with action but the path forward isn’t clear.

Timmy shoves another forkful of lasagne into his mouth and talks with chipmunk cheeks. “Neither of us was happy, not really. We were good friends, we’re better as friends. And we’ll be good business partners. But not lovers, we’re not designed to be lovers.”

Armie, always focused on the most important details, asks, “Business partners?”

“Turns out there is a paucity of comic books with homoerotic undertones. We’re going to create a comic book together.” 

“I hope the homoeroticism less subtext and more of an overt theme,” Armie says in a low rumble as he moves in to capture Timmy’s lips, licking the tomato sauce off of them and then plunging into his mouth where he can taste the lasagne and that taste that’s all Timmy and he has been hungry for since Italy but had not realized it. 

Timmy pulls away, “We need to talk.”

“I can think of better things to do with our mouths,” Armie whispers against Timmy’s lips as he tries to pull him into another kiss.

“I’m not going to do this with you the way things are.” 

“The way I am, you mean,” Armie sighs and moves to the other side of the counter, unconsciously putting a wall between him and impending rejection. It’s not enough that he’s Timmy’s first choice and he and Nick have ended things. Armie is not enough, can’t be a good partner, after all he’s shit at every other relationship in his life. “I suppose you want monogamy.” And here’s where it ends and he loses once more. 

“I did monogamy with Nick. It was fine but it was like violin music.”

“Violin music? Very romantic,” his words have a bite to them. 

“Yeah romantic but that’s just…” Timmy pushes around more lasagne. Armie is afraid Luca will charge them with murder if he sees his food decimated this way. “...window dressing. The house is laughter and conversation and arguing and paying bills and you can have a house without window dressing but window dressing without a house doesn’t work.”

“So you don’t need violin music.” 

“I don’t need violin music. I need a house.”

“I - I can give you a house.” Armie runs his hand over his mouth. 

Sunlight is streaming through the floor to ceiling windows but it is no competition for the smile that spreads across Timmy’s face and somehow takes over his entire posture.

“To be clear we’re talking about sex with other men.” Talking about anything generally, but especially emotions, is painful for Armie. He’s not good at it and, like anything we’re not good at, he avoids it. But, he realizes, he can push through now and cut through the metaphors or doom himself to have to have a discussion like this again. 

“We are. So long as it’s not emotional, I don’t care.” Timmy slides off his barstool so they are standing face each other, man to man. 

“Emotional? I can barely do this,” Armie gestures between them at the conversation they’re currently having, “with you. Let alone with someone else. No, what I do with other men, that’s purely physical. I don’t even want their names.” 

Timmy snorts a laugh, “Okay.”

“So no emotions,” Armie confirms. 

“No emotions and - “ Timmy starts before Armie cuts him off with a deep groan. He pushes through, proving once more that he is Armie’s match in every way. “And it can’t mean something else. Don’t use it to communicate with me, if you’re pissed off tell me. Even if you can’t say more than that.”

Armie sighs from deep in his belly. “I can - I can try. I have a long history of not communicating. And a long history of fucking when I’m happy or sad or…” 

“Or angry,” Timmy supplies. Armie even struggles with the words for emotions. 

“Or angry,” Armie agrees. “So I’ll try but I can’t promise I’ll be perfect.”

“Armie Hammer not perfect? Perish the thought,” Timmy smiles at him and looks up at him through long eyelashes.

Armie digs his fingers between Timmy’s ribs until laughter streams from between his lips like an open faucet. “Have we talked? Have we talked? Can we fuck now?”

Timmy tries to talk through breathless laughter and Armie eases up on his assault, “Just-just I used to maybe be able to pick up on the non-verbal stuff a lot better but, oh god we’re the perfect pair huh?”

Armie feels something in response to being a part of a pair, being a part of something with Timmy. The guy who doesn’t talk and the guy who needs talking to understand. “Is this...from your injury?”

Timmy nods, looking anywhere but at Armie and Armie hates that he feels an ounce of shame, a molecule of embarrassment for something he cannot help. That he’s been made to feel this way. Armie’s not the only one who’s been placed in a small box that has required cutting off pieces of himself to fit what others want, to sink to their expectations. “From my injury, from my… turns out traumatic brain injury wasn’t enough and it got some post traumatic stress disorder to go along with it. Both can cause difficulties reading non-verbal cues.”

“Of course.” Armie pulls Timmy into his embrace and rests his chin on top of his head and doesn’t think about how a warm feeling starts in his chest and spreads through his body at that. Armie is used to giving to those in his life, those who claim they love him, those who do love him even if they don’t always know how or even whom it is they love. Armie is used to making sure no one goes without what they need. And Timmy? He would move heaven and earth to ensure Timmy gets whatever he needs. He would even, he swallows hard, talk about things, emotions, occasionally, if that’s what Timmy needs. He will build a goddamn house with him.

_You see the smile that's on my mouth  
It's hiding the words that don't come out  
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed  
They don't know my head is a mess  
No, they don't know who I really am  
And they don't know what I've been through like you do  
And I was made for you_  
-The Story, Brandi Carlile

**Author's Note:**

> I live for your comments and kudos! It fills the gaping void where healthy humans have a strong sense of self and little need for external validation. thatajthings on tumblr.


End file.
